


Reflections of the Gods

by iwtv



Category: Black Sails
Genre: M/M, Words of Marcus Aurelius, and our beloved book, and the past, fluffy sex, peach verse fluff, thomas wonders about his power over james
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-19
Updated: 2017-06-19
Packaged: 2018-11-15 21:10:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11239275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iwtv/pseuds/iwtv
Summary: Sorry it's been a while since I've posted but I'm still here!This is a one-shot while I get ready to post a longer fic. This is based on the assumption that James still has Meditations and has brought it to their peach farm. (Discussed in my Reorienting to the Daylight fic if you haven't read).  It's been over ten years since Thomas laid eyes on Meditations, but he's overwhelmed by the past when he tries to read it.  James offers himself as a distraction but then Thomas gets chatty. ;) Soft porn in disguise as something more lofty xD





	Reflections of the Gods

He let his palm rest on the cover, fingertips pressing gently. It was cool to the touch, even in this clime. He slid his fingers over it, feeling the tiny indentations of the leather. Eventually his fingers began sticking to the cover. Nothing was immune from the Savannah humidity.

Thomas removed his hand and shifted in the chair. He lifted his head briefly to look out at the peach orchard as everything dimmed in the coming dusk.

Earlier he had opened the book to the page with his own script on it. It was his only visible love message to James. Everything had hit him all at once—the memory of writing it and how careful he’d been not to make a mistake, the look on James’s face when he’d read it, his study in London, the rain, the city, his father, the last time he saw Lieutenant McGraw—

It had been too much, too fast.

He had the first page memorized for years before he’d gifted it to James. Thomas closed his eyes and recited it in his head:

_From my grandfather Verus: decency and a mild temper._

_From what they say and I remember of my natural father: integrity and manliness._

_From my mother: piety, the avoidance of wrongdoing and even the thought of it; also simplicity of living, well clear of the habits of the rich…._

His memory faltered after that. No, that was a lie. His mind was stuck on that bit. He opened his eyes. Here before him was simplicity of living, finally. As a lord he’d taken to heart the second half of that statement despite himself, striving to avoid becoming the caricatures of people so many his colleagues had. But Marcus had written many reflections in his book. Thomas knew he did not even measure up to half of them.

He heard the door softly behind him. James’s figure appeared in his peripheral vision. Thomas let out a sigh, sitting up straight in the chair. James’s hand came to rest beside the book.

“I’m afraid I’m having difficulty making it past my own inscription,” Thomas confessed.

James said nothing. Thomas watched as the hand moved away from the book and came to rest on the top of his shoulder. The other hand followed suit and together they massaged the tension from Thomas’s muscles.

Thomas closed his eyes again, relishing the feeling. James’s thumbs kneaded over his neck in slow circles.

“That feels good,” he said.

James moved his hands down to the skin between his shoulder blades and Thomas reflexively arched his back. He felt James’s mouth on his head. A kiss into his hair, which he knew needed a cut.

“Come to bed,” he said softly.

Thomas took the book and did so. James stoked the hearth and blew out the candles. When he returned to the bed Thomas was comfortably on his back, all his clothes shed and folded neatly. He watched as James stripped off his shirt and pants as well, dropping them to the floor instead of folding them. Thomas’s lips curved up at the habit.

James climbed over both the bed and Thomas at the same time, situating himself over the other’s form and holding himself up on his elbows. Thomas looked up into his face as his hands automatically swept themselves over James’s rump, across the curve of his back, and up to his massive shoulders. The feel of James’s body eased his tension further.

“You don’t have to read it again, you know,” James said.

“I know. But I want to,” said Thomas.

A thumb played across his bottom lip.

“Are you afraid of what’s inside?”

“A little.”

“Do not be. Marcus would think you a fine example of mankind. Much better than I.”

Thomas took the thumb into his mouth and rolled his lips over it.

“Always so quick to dismiss yourself,” he replied.

James blinked slowly and bent down to kiss him.

“Old habits die hard.”

James bent lower and kissed the thin skin over his throat. Thomas shivered at the feel of James’s tongue over the dip below his Adam’s Apple. He smoothed his palms over either side of James’s ribs and gently thrust his hips up. James reached down between them and took hold of Thomas’s soft cock, lazily stroking it.

Thomas hummed. James had taken to looking at him as he had so many times long ago, as if Thomas were his king on a pedestal and James could do nothing but obey him. It sent a thrill through Thomas each time—and yet now, after all that he had been through, it worried him.

“You think me beyond reproach, don’t you,” he asked as he pressed his lips next to James’s ear, arching up into James’s hand between his legs.

“Beyond reproach, no,” replied James in a velvet tone. “But I’ve already forgiven you of any wrong-doing.”

James shifted slightly off Thomas to give them more room, sliding both their cocks together and kissing over Thomas’s chest. Thomas moaned, carding his fingers through the mass of growing ruddy hair on James’s head. James rolled a thumb over Thomas’s slit and he gasped. It was not quite enough for him to lose his grip on his thoughts.

“I’ve never done enough,” Thomas said, dragging his eyes away from James’s increasingly animated body to the ceiling. He kept responding to James’s touch, not wanting him to stop.

“What do you mean?” James asked in-between kisses.

“I’ve always felt…like I’ve never done enough. It’s why I pushed us so hard then… _huuh._ ”

James had done something particular between his legs and Thomas felt the pleasurable pressure starting to build. James removed his hands and propped himself up on the mattress. The worry lines on his forehead made him look older. Thomas quickly squeezed over his rump, fingertips brushing his cleft.

“Don’t stop,” he said.

James grinned and the lines disappeared. Almost.

“If you wish to talk about it again, I am listening,” he said. “But as I’ve said, I’ve—”

“Already forgiven me, yes I know.”

James pressed over his body again, rubbing their cocks together. His other hand clutched at Thomas’s thigh.

 _" ‘From Apollonius,_ ” said James in that velvet tone again, _“moral freedom, the certainty to ignore the dice of fortune, and have no other perspective, even for a moment, than that of reason alone.’ ”_ And did Marcus not believe that nature and reason go hand in hand? You taught me this.”

James shifted his grip on Thomas’s cock, working it faster and planting more kisses on his neck. Thomas turned his head to the side and arched into James’s touch. James’s hands were growing hot and his neck and chest were beautifully flushed.

Thomas heard his breath grow heavy with the stimulation.

“Yes,” he said in a breathy voice, “Marcus did believe that. But he contradicts himself later on. What does it…ahhh…what does it mean…fuck James…”

James was rutting against him now, pulling his foreskin up and down over his head and causing his cock to leak. Thomas closed his eyes. He wanted to bathe in this, bathe in James’s touch. But he had a thought to get out, damnit.

“What does it mean,” he continued, opening his eyes to a hooded pair of green ones staring down at him, “If we ignore the contradictions and only choose to acknowledge what we agree with most?”

James managed a grin, forcing a laugh out through his nose.

“Then that makes us the same as the rest of the human population, I suppose.”

“God, you,” Thomas mumbled out. Things were beginning to grow hazy as his physical activity overwhelmed his mental faculties. James kept pulling his cock and from the way he did Thomas knew he meant to make him come this way.

“Do you really care about judgment? About measuring up to Marcus’s standards that much?” James asked now, biting his lower lip.

Thomas bucked up into his touch, his rump almost leaving the mattress.

“N-not anymore,” he panted. “Only your judgment.”

James’s lips lingered over his own, breath entering Thomas’s parted mouth.

“Then does that make me your god?”

James held his scrotum in his hand and squeezed gently. Thomas gasped. He threw his ankles over James’s back, no longer able to control himself.

“Yes,” he answered, eyes closed. “Yes it does! Mmm, James…”

His voice broke. His body was to the bursting point. They fell silent as James worked his orgasm from him, touching him with both hands until Thomas spilled over. He spasmed and shuddered, clinging to James like a lifeboat as he came between them. When he was done James raised his hand. Thomas could see and smell himself on it. He eagerly took James’s fingers into his mouth, lazily opening his eyes. James moaned deeply.

“If I am your god, then you are mine,” James said, very slowly drawing his fingers out. He was still fucking up against Thomas’s stomach with his cock, still unsatisfied. Thomas reached down and took James in his hand.

“If I am your god, then I demand your sacrifice,” he whispered. He hooked his hand behind James’s neck and pulled him into a hard kiss. He jerked hard over James’s shaft, pulling James so that he was completely over top of him again.

James dug his knees and a fist into the mattress, bucking into Thomas’s hand. Within minutes Thomas had him moaning over and over. He bit James’s earlobe as he moved his other hand between the mounds of his ass. James pushed his knees out further over the mattress as Thomas touched his rim.

“Give me my sacrifice,” Thomas said again. “I demand it. Give it to me, James.”

He fingered James’s rim and James was bucking into his hand at a frantic pace. Thomas imagined he heard his heart beating. It still took his breath away at how he could do this to James, how he and he alone had the power to make him fall apart in this way. The moans coming from him were turning into longer, half-muffled cries into his shoulder. Thomas closed his eyes and pressed harder.

“James,” he whispered and suddenly James was spilling into his fist. Thomas pumped him slowly. He kept rubbing his fingers over his rim. James let out a guttural, almost child-like keen that made Thomas’s chest drop. Thomas worked him through it. When he was done James dismounted but stayed right beside him, one leg and one arm thrown over him.

The only sound in the room was of their hard breathing and Thomas’s racing pulse slowing down. He felt so good he wanted to weep. Perhaps he was. He blinked the moisture away when James finally raised his head to look at him. He still looked wrecked, his cheeks flushed and his lips red and swollen from all the work he’d been doing with them.

They said absolutely nothing. Thomas couldn’t keep the smile off his lips. James lightly ran a hand over his chest and stomach and the cooling love juices there as though he were studying them. His eyes followed his every movement. ‘I love you’ seemed inadequate, Thomas thought, for a pair of gods.

He cleaned himself off. Then he reached over and picked up Meditations from the table. He opened to the first page easily and began reading.


End file.
